The UFC didn't even release (or leak) the last Ngannou PPV rate. And that was his biggest and most hyped fight ever. Safe to assume, the number was underwhelming.

The Usman/Masvidal rematch card, with THREE title fights and the first American card with a full audience in attendance since the pandemic, did 200K LESS than the original Usman/Masvidal card which pulled the main event together in 6 days.

The UFC card previous to this last one, which had the hottest young star in the org (Adesanya), 2 title fights, and the return to the octagon of Nick Diaz, barely did 500K domestic PPV buys.

Then for this last card, Dana said the pre-buys were outpacing any card in UFC history and he was estimating a 2+ mil PPV buy rate. After the event, he had to humbly admit that the event was now looking at something closer to 1.6-1.7 mil. Nothing to sneeze at but far below what they had been anticipating.

UFC PPV buys are tumbling pretty quickly. And, like you said, Conor is far and above any other fighter (or combination of fighters) in terms of stardom and drawing power. So it's easy to see why they keep throwing him into main events and essentially giving him any fight he wants. Dude is gonna be around for a good while and headlining cards regardless of what his actual record is (assuming he still wants to fight).